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Good morning, y’all! And good night to you, Liz! So sorry about the toffee. I guess you’ll just have to (try) to make your own again!

I’m not sure just what Spence and Admin are referring to by “going on.” Are they implying that they want someone to wrap up the auction? Or the blog’s connection to Snowhook Kennels? Or perhaps they mean we ought to do a recap of the Astrid case so a newcomer can jump right in when Spence continues the saga? Which I’m sure will happen any day now. Pondering…

Liz: I think some of the same characters are in “The Dog Who….” I don’t think he’s doing the same case, though. Or maybe he figured why bother finishing it for free on the blog when he can make us buy his new book to find out how the Astrid case ends. Of course, we would have bought the new book anyway, and I don’t think Spence is that kind of guy. Admin, on the other hand….

Also, we were outbid on others on your list. We were going for the Bath & Body pkg (Meashka loves to pamper herself). And Dima was dying for W-L jacket. But at the end, we had to pick just 3 items and f-o-c-u-s. Our strat worked!

Dawson. Talk about “working for the man”-working for the auction more like it. lol

Kirby & Liz: As us kats tend to be curious, I am wondering about the meaning of “spend a penny”…Kirby I did fancy that cute little book of yours. Didn’t you mention one time you could give the Plunderers a look-see? (purring)

Masquers: “Spend a penny” means to visit the “loo.” As I’m not British, I’m not sure where the term came from. Perhaps they had pay toilets?

As for the book, I would be happy to post the pages from it — with Dawson’s permission. Since she bought the book, I think she should have the final say. In any case, Mom is getting ready to go to work, so the book will have to wait until she gets home. I’m not sure how to work her fancy new camera!

Kirby: Now that you mention it, your name does sound British, even if you’re not. Just has that certain ring of importance to it. Yes, and BTW we will be waiting for that sneak peak at the book. I’m sure Dawson won’t mind. Heh,heh.

Barb just finished her morning coffee and her bill paying. Wrote a check to Rebecca, and it will go in today’s mail. It will be sooo exciting to get our prizes.

Had a huge windstorm here. For once we lucked out, and it actually was worse in the suburbs. We have small branches and twigs in the yard, and the garden looks pretty sad, everything is laying sideways, but think it is mostly savable. Both Barb’s kids in the burbs have tree damage in their yards. Kelly lost half of a large oak, and Josh has a smaller maple that got split in half. Out here they were predicting 50-60 mph winds, kids said they recorded 80 mph in there! Worst wind they have seen in years at their homes. Wowzers!

On spend a penny, our understanding is that, while there were not pay toilets per se, there were often bathroom attendants and it was customary to tip the attendant a penny after visiting the “loo” and that is where the phrase came from. My dad says he actually heard that explanation from an Italian gentleman, so it may be that practice originated in Europe. Wookie

Whoa, almost hurricane force velocity winds! Scary stuff. We have winds like that here on the West Coast too. Lots of clean-up afterwards. Hope your garden is okay. (those poor tomato plants)

Heard about your boy’s adventures on his bike ride. What an accomplishment even if he did not complete the miles he intended. The incident with the dog and truck driver low points in the journey for sure.

Oh, oh. There’s that word V-E-T. It’s not me, though, as the kat karrier is being hauled out…

We think SQ wants someone to do a review of why and how we did the auction. And probably include how SiberH got us involved with the Iditarod and WhiteyLance to begin with. B is very good at writing these up

Good morning to Everyone.
My auction strategy was simple. I bid on most everything on Friday night because I had to work the 12 hour shifts Saturday and Sunday. There was plenty of time to out-bid me and many of you did. (Tupper and Gilly, Rio, Oley Howlers, Blue Cat, Wookie, Staff and whoever got the hot dog pot holders I bid on!)

To the newcomers: All the money goes to benefit Snowhook Kennels 2012 Iditarod race. Buy a patch from Snowhook!

Ok, now I know you bid on the pot holders as well as we did. Our strategy was to bid $25.50, because they were at $20.00 and the other set was $25.00. We thought that by going the extra .50 we might get it. What do you think, Dawson, is that what put us over?

We are anxious to see Kirby’s book. Also, we thought for sure Liz got the toffee. Who got it? No one has fessed up yet have they?

Dawson did a fine job of summarizing the auction action. For new people on this blog: The Plunderers of Chet’s blog just finished holding an online auction of 37 donated items (including an ARC of Spence’s fourth Chet and Bernie mystery, The Dog Who Knew Too Much) in order to help sponsor Snowhook Kennel in the 2012 Iditarod race. Here is a link to Snowhook’s blog and the Plunderers, “a class all their own,” are listed on the left of the screen under “Sponsors.”

In a bit of a rush this morning, so I will have to catch up on the blog later. Some Un-Plunderers (or should it be non?) won some of the auction items. More on that later, yet now for an important announcement:

As you know, we have two new dogs in the Kennel. Gomez, a three year old male has promise of becoming a lead dog. As for the second dog, he is an eight month old pup that is really happy about life, yet he needs a name. Being the president of the naming department, I thought about different names: Wallace, Liam, Nicholas…no, none of these names seemed quite right. We wanted his name to be special and something that compliments Gomez’s name. Finally, I voiced a name to AJ this morning that had been rolling around in my head for the past few days. With a nod to the reason I visited Chet’s blog in the first place, he will be named….drum roll, please…Rio. Rio, the Good Natured Sled Dog for long.

Tonight is also the start of the new season of The Closer. One of Barb’s favorite shows. Just 11 more episodes and the series is over. Boo hoo.

Barb tried some of her Omaha Steak products last night. They are really good, and fairly reasonable if you buy the specials. She got 4 sole stuffed with crab and scallops, for $9.99, and some apple tarts, 6 for 10.99. The sole was very good. The apple tart was beyond good. She baked it, then had it warm with vanilla ice cream. It was to die for! She wouldn’t even share, except for a little ice cream!

B. Stover. In response to your question from last night, my dad says he trusts you to come up with something appropriate in terms of the dedication page, and will leave it to your good judgment. He says he is the one who should be honored to have won your story. Wookie

Yippie!!! Rio is going to be so surprised. He deserves the honor. It is Rio who has these ceative ideas about quilts and auctions. I had forgotten that he was the first one of us to post on Snowhook’s blog
I like both names, Gomez and Rio.

Mom drove me to the post office this morning and I mailed my check to Rebecca for the auction items.

Rebeccer!…My friend says you are making a big, big awful, awful mistake…snort!….Don’t listen to her… I’m skipping, I’m skipping, now I’m twirling, I’m twirling!…wheeze!…Now I’m dizzy, I’m dizzy… whew!… So what does this mean for me? I mean, what do I get out of this name business?…huffle!…I would sure like an autographed photo of Clarkson. Can you arrange that Rebeccer?….grunt!

Hey y’all
Congratulations to everyone on the success of the auction. Everyone of you are winners in my book, whether you got your favorite item or not. And of course the biggest winners are our friends at Snowhook.
Rebecca. That was right thoughtful of you to name that young pup after Brother Rio. Our Rio is a special character-sure yours will be too. If his heart is as big as our pug’s, you will have a winner for sure.
Wish I could say that I won that there toffee but fraid not. Hope the winner might bring some to the next party

Hello Redbone: No word on Wolfie’s Toffee and about 4 other items. Rebecca said some top bids were by non-Plunderers. Looks like we’ll have to wait until the donors receive notification from Snowhook to find out. Arrggh! Y’all know how I hate to wait.

Just so we don’t have to go back and look, what did Blou II end up going for? And do we know who won him? Someone said shipping will be alot, and on that we agree. It wasn’t Dawson, who won just about everything!

Blou: Such a good-looking doggie (both of them). I am concerned about the logistics of sending Blou to Bellingham.

Snowhook Bella: I’m looking forward to seeing a picture of Rio the good and Gomez.

Rio: Congratulations for being honored by Snowhook Kennels in this special way. As Siber H. pointed out, it is you who comes up with these creative ideas (and lights a fire under our bums to our annoyance and delight).

Barb and Maggie: Yes it was me who won Blou for the low, low price of $65.00. I told Snowhook my email address to give to Tyb’s dad because I am concerned about the cost of sending something so huge and heavy. It might make more sense for Tyb’s dad to keep Blou and make a donation to a charity instead of giving all that money to the Post Office or UPS. We will see.

Canada!…Dawson, just so you know, there is no way in Hell that the Fan will make it in one piece all the way to Canada…snort!…That country is littered with marauding goats and lazy postal workers…grunt!…You should just kiss the Fan goodbye right now…sniff!

Rio, congratulations!!! You are the heart of our blog in so many ways and should be thusly honored! (I think I may have made that word up. Too bad, but I’m keeping it!)

(whispering) Don’t forget that all the Plunderers get toffee during the holidays! Mom may even be persuaded to sell some, above and beyond what is gifted to us. Any and all profit, of course, would be donated to Snowhook.

Spence: When you send this ARC to Canada it is a gift! Not something I paid $333.33 for. It’s value is simply whatever the cost of the paper is. Don’t forget! Those customs guys used to be highway robbers before they got this job.

OleyHowlers. I don’t think the auction page can be updated any more. Most of the bids listed there are correct; the only ones that are not correct are for the items in which final bids came in after about 11:50 am (there are a total of eight items). I think we had so many bids come in throughout the auction that we blew through the web page’s ability to take comments. I think there would be no problem with copying the list that was posted yesterday afternoon of the final bids into facebookie for the facebookie world to know about it (unfortunately I can’t do that since I am not allowed of facebookie myself — house rules). In case you are interested, the eight items on which the actual final price is not listed in the comment section are as follows:

Hi Liz! So sorry you didn’t win Wolfie’s Toffee. But, Dawson who claimed many valuable prizes, didn’t get it either. In fact, it looks like none of the Plunderers did. Wonder if it was a Chet Fan or someone else. Many of us put the word out to friends and relatives, so it could have been one of those guys too.

Home-Run!…Derby is on…heh!….SiberH, did you see the size of Hollidays arms?…grunt!…That guy has HUGE honking tree trunks for arms…snort!

Toffee!…I can’t believe you guys let some stranger win Wolfies beloved Toffee…sniff!…I for one have never tasted it, but my friend says she is definitely going to buy some when the offer comes around this winter…snort!…I’ll get my share, don’t worry…heh!

Pup!…So this pup living up in Alaska with Rebeccer has my name now….snort!….I am going to have to get his email address so I can teach him the ways of the world. Every pup needs a good mentor and I intend to teach this guy all the good stuff…heh! …Little Rio Junior will grow up to be just like me!…wuffle!

I don’t get my share of toffee in this house, so I hope you have better luck than me. If a stranger bought it, he/she purchased it without ever tasting it.
Do you suppose that is what Spence won? That would be okay if he won it.

Apes!…Earlier we couldn’t believe our eyes…sniff!…We actually saw a commercial for a Planet Of The Apes movie…grunt!…I think it was called, “Rise of Planet of the Apes.”…Seriously? I thought that era was long over…huffle!

Pit!… Hey! Now we are excited! …wooo!…We just saw a commercial for a new baseball movie called, “Moneyball” starring Brad Pit…heh!…Where the hell has that guy been lately?…snort!….I hope this movie is better than that other baseball movie called, “The Fan”…chorkel!heh! …Remember that one?…cough!

Fringe!…Say, we were going to go to bed right behind Stover, but we found out Fringe is On Demand….snort!…We are watching an episode that almost starts right where we left in a huffle last year….grunt!….Maybe with the ability to re-wind and watch multiple times we can understand this show…heh!…At least that is her new Fringe Theory…

Kirby!…If One were enough, Rebeccer would not have named her new pup after me, Rio…snort!

Catch-Phrase!…”So off he went” is the catch-phrase for Scotties travels. Is there any adventure or mystery in this book?…sniff!sniff!…He seems like a dull sort of chap, in my opinion…grunt!…He never sticks around long enough to get to know anybody…huffle!

Kirby – What a wonderful little book! We thought long and hard about it, but we don’t know any little ones that we could have shared it with. (We thought about Blou too, but didn’t bid for the same reason)

But it is a delightful book. We would love to know how you did it – think you said the pages were fabric?

We keep checking in so late – there is so much to do and so little time left to do it all. Shows start this weekend – yikes – back to the work table for another hour before bed…
G’night all.

T&G: I wrote the book, then found some photos to illustrate it. Mom found some special stuff at the craft store — it was a package of paper-backed cloth that she put through the computer printer. Then she peeled off the paper and used some fusible stuff to iron on the scottie dogs she cut from the same flannel cloth she used to make the blanket. Then she added some batting and sewed the whole thing together.

Kirby T: Your book is wonderful. If we had been able to bid, I would have been in a bidding war for the wonderful book and quilt (along with everything else). The book is very creative—well done. Sometimes it is difficult not to be in a hurry to return home after you’ve been away.

Speaking of returning home I couldn’t wait to get home last night. Yet, there was a promblem. AJ didn’t recognize me with my haircut, at least not until I was about fifteen feet away from him. It was so good to see the dogs again, too and to meet Gomez and Rio, the unpug.

Before I left for the lower forty-eight I told AJ if he really loved me he would do away with all the mosquitoes before I returned. Sure enough, there were no mosquitoes last night. Yet, tonight I questioned the strength of his love and devotion as I was swarmed from car to house.

AJ’s cousin was the winner of Wolfie’s toffee—apparently, word has spread as to the wonder of said toffee. Who won W.L.’s jacket? — Snowhook’s first international individual sponsor won the famed jacket.

Kirby! That is the cutest little ole book this ole hound has ever laid eyes on. Wisht I’d been round for that auction. Your Ma sure sounds like one smart cookie to create that.
(whispering- kinda hoping that Beauregard just might have been inspired by a certain big ole hound what’s been hanging around on this here blog)

Rebecca: Thanks! Did you notice I named the dog in Alaska Lance? In did that in honor of you-know-who! I hope you like your haircut! Once, when Mom and Dad had just moved to a new duty station, Mom got her haircut and a perm. The result was sooooo bad that when Mom got home, my boy — who was about a year old at the time — took one look at her and hid behind the couch crying because he didn’t know who she was! Mom did a little crying herself. So Mom had the task of finding someone else to fix her hair. Then everytime Dad got orders, Mom had to find someone new. After they moved here, it took Mom several years to find someone she liked. And just before Christmas he stopped working. She hasn’t had it cut since. She keeps saying she has to be brave and go on the hunt again, but she just can’t bring herself to do it! (And two library patrons have actually told her they like it better longer, so maybe she just won’t ever cut it again!)

Kirby T: As I kept getting closer and closer to AJ without any sort of recognition on his face I thought to myself, “Does he frequently have women running toward him with open arms?” Nope—he just didn’t recognize me with bangs and straight hair. Your story about your boy and mom reminds me of a Coach and my brohter. Before I was born, my father was coaching high school football. He told his players if they won he would shave his head. Sure enough. My brother, a toddler at the time watched as the players took turns cutting Coach’s hair. My brother didn’t understand that hair would grow back even when cut by a tight end or wide reciever.

Alaska + summer = mosquitoes. I am bitten up. However, word from KY is that the heat index is 115 degrees. Not sure what is worse: the mosquitoes or the heat. I’m off to KY on Friday so I will find out, I guess.

Hey, CHarris! We’re supposed to have the same kind of heat index this week. All I can say is I’m mighty glad we have air conditioning — and even gladder that Mom and Dad let me stay inside! I don’t know how those outdoor dogs can stand it!!! As for mosquitos, they don’t bother me too much. But those pesky things really like Mom. Even when nobody else gets bit, Mom seems to collect a bunch of itchy bumps. She says it’s because she’s so sweet!

My husband has an alexandrite set in a ring, and it is
a real conversation piece because it changes color depending on the intensity of the light that reaches it.
inspiration, creativity and intuition within the mind.

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